


This is me trying

by britishngay



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: F/F, Ouch, Toni's head during and up to 1x07, oh boy, shes so angry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29556951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britishngay/pseuds/britishngay
Summary: Sand gets everywhere.In every little crease in her body, every little crevice where sand could get, is where sand is.And that normally gets her ready to flip her shit at any second, but there’s something pisses her off more than stupid sand.Shelby.(Or Toni's head up to 1x07)
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	This is me trying

Sand gets everywhere.

In every little crease in her body, every little crevice where sand could get, is where sand is.

And that normally gets her ready to flip her shit at any second, but there’s something pisses her off more than stupid sand.

Shelby.

Shelby’s all sunshine and fucking rainbows.

Using Martha for her College apps and smiling through all this bullshit like nothing’s happening. She knows her type, she knows _exactly_ her type. Fake blonde, fake tan, fake girl. She sees something underneath all of the fake and hope and blind optimism, something creeping in the background that she doesn’t understand and doesn’t care to.

Blondie can figure out her own shit.

They go to find water on the first day together.

It’s shit.

She watches as Shelby bounces as she walks, her ponytail swaying side-to-side. Listens as she goes on and on about her goddamn God and all that shit.

She makes fun of her, anger spilling out of her like it always does and Shelby just _takes_ it. She gives as good as she gets, talking about her hunting and what she knows.

Shelby fucking sings some fucking Christian rock as she pisses.

She pushes a bush into her to just shut her up and she goes hurtling down a hill.

Then she doesn’t tell anyone, doesn’t turn Martha against her. Just talks some shit about running _smack into a tree._ And they make eye contact for a second and it moves on.

Why didn’t she tell anyone?

Time goes on.

The sand grounds her, running her hands through it, letting it fall through her fingers. It brings her back to reality.

Or at least is does for one second until Shelby enters her goddamn head again and Fatin asks if she’s an Aries.

Days pass like forever and nothing at the same time.

Time passing has never felt so goddamn excruciating, even when she got kicked from the team and her only solace was ripped out from under her feet. Leaving her with hours of free time, hours of time with nothing alone with her thoughts and her actions and her guilt and now it’s all happening again.

She calls for the Takis as soon as they show up.

They’re hers. She _knew_ they were from the minute Fatin dropped them on the sand.

“Three words. Shelter building competition.”

For fucks sake.

Shelby with that camp counselor bullshit.

The Takis are hers, but she’s already skating on thin ice and she knows that they do need a shelter.

They fight.

All the time inside her head has left her coiled tighter than a catgut string ready to snap with one pluck of a finger.

Martha takes Shelby’s side.

Of course she fucking does.

She leaves.

She leaves to stop herself from hurting someone.

She always hurts someone.

Regan, Martha, herself.

On a fucking loop.

She needs to calm down, she needed to calm down half an hour ago but she runs at a hundred every second of every damn day. She never means to, she never means to boil over and burn the people holding her but she does anyway.

Regret is an ice cold knife in her gut every time. And it should stop her from doing it again, but her self-hatred fills her up too much for that.

Shelby shows up at the part of a beach where she’s hiding away in peace. Of course she starts going on about the different types of hell and just as her anger has finally retreated, it comes back bubbling at the bottom of her stomach.

Shelby’s like a coffee filter with her emotions, only the liquid gets out. None of that anger and frustration and the filthy little bits that makes someone real.

That pisses her off.

They’re on an island in the middle of fucking nowhere and Shelby is skipping about the place like it’s a goddamn vacation.

Fuck that.

Fuck her.

Fuck Shelby and her ponytail and her smile and the way words roll off her tongue. Screw her and the way that her eyes pierce right through Toni, and the way her lips curl up in the smug way that shows she thinks she’s better than her.

The worst part is that she _knows_ she pisses Shelby off too, but only Toni looks like the asshole who hates someone.

“Hell is where the Lord sends us to teach us something.” She turns to Shelby, watches as her face finally morphs out of that pageant-girl-Southern-belle smile into an open irritation. Finally. “Lord knows he’s trying to teach me patience.”

She knew it.

“Martha says it’s not just about me.”

No shit Shelby, not everything is fucking about you.

She goads Shelby. Watching as her face struggles to keep up a façade.

Then she kicks her feebly and Toni is more than ready to throw hands with the bible freak, but that just isn’t as satisfying as watching Shelby’s beautiful face crumple in anger, her irritation moving on to something more. Shelby says she’s not worth it and it prods at that one fear that haunts her.

“But I see you.”

She sees Shelby react to those words, a quick intake of breath, jaw wired shut. She carries on and Shelby’s eyes get harder and her jaw flutters and she leaves. Her anger festers, waiting to come out.

She takes the long route through the trees, hoping that it’ll bubble down like it did before but the girl has a habit of climbing under her skin.

Martha and Shelby talk about visiting Texas.

Nora tries to help and makes it worse.

That’s it.

She destroys the shelter.

It feels the same as smashing Regan’s car with her backpack. Cathartic destruction followed but the ice of regret.

She destroys the one good relationship she has in the world.

“You ruin things, you destroy things and you break things.”

She’s never seen, never heard Martha this angry in her life.

Regret isn’t just a cold knife this time, it’s a hurtling, swirling ocean of ice and foam drowning her from the inside.

Fuck the Takis.

She runs and runs and runs until her legs buckle underneath her.

Good.

She sleeps in the forest, rocks digging into her back, the cold seeping through her clothes, fucked up animal noises keeping her on edge.

She deserves this, this constant, dull uncomfortableness. Not enough to hurt, to ache, but enough to remind her of all she’s done.

She finds a torn up piece of Fatin’s clothing in the woods, further then Dot has let them go, it has red stained all over it. Her shame gives way to fear and she runs again, back to camp. She sees Leah and Rachel going through it but she collapses next to fucking Shelby and Nora, lungs screaming for air.

Everyone follows her to where she found it.

Martha biting into her while the others worry, Leah is the one curled up tight, fighting with Rachel while fucking Shelby worries and Nora trails in the back. Dot stays calm, like she always does, tired with all of their in-fighting and shit, just wanting to survive.

The way Shelby says Givenchy makes her want to laugh but the situation is dire so she just asks. Keeping quiet, hoping that everyone –Martha – will forgive her.

Shelby suggests another game while they walk. And they split up, but not before Rachel and Leah get in a couple of digs at each other. Leah pushes them, guilt and stress fueling her.

Toni understands that far too well.

They hear a commotion and run towards the screaming, Rachel is leg deep in quick sand.

Fear grips her as they try to pull her out.

Martha calms her.

They work as one and save her.

They find Fatin, who has found clean water.

And somehow it all seems worth it, just to feel the fresh cold against her skin. Days of grime and dirt and salt washing away.

Jealousy creeps like a vine up her back as she watches Martha and Shelby splash each other, but for once anger doesn’t bubble up, just sadness.

Rachel find mussels a week later, holding them up like a prize at a carnival and the hunger she’s been pretending to avoid comes back in full force.

The food filling her belly makes her feel lighter, Martha is looking at her again, talking a bit to her, Nora points out how she’s eating her bodyweight in them and she licks it the way she knows makes girls toes curl and grab her head.

She adds extra flair to make them all laugh, but the base idea is still there.

God what she wouldn’t give to do _that_ to someone again.

They all hype her up as she does what she does best.

Until Shelby speaks.

Here it is.

What she’s been waiting for.

Everyone leaves it up to good ol’ Christian prudishness but she knows the feeling.

Knows the way that Shelby is looking at her is like the girls who refused to get changed for gym in the same room with her, the same as those girls who would give her and Regan dirty looks and the people who ask her if she’s ready to be forgiven.

She knows it.

She admits to her way of life being a sin and for the first time in a week she blows off.

She hadn’t wanted to be angry, the feeling hadn’t creeped up on her for days and here it was, sudden and strong.

She watches as Shelby goes through all five stages of grief while her anger remains strong.

That somethings behind the mask is shining through.

But she doesn’t give a shit. Shelby’s shown her full colours, and she was right, she’s hateful, hiding behind religion.

She rushes off before she can hurt someone.

The anger twisting and turning in her gut makes her feel sick. She’s never felt like this before.

And the food she had just inhaled comes right back up.

She hates being sick, she hates the way it empties, hates the way it coats her mouth and stinks.

She expects it to stop, after half an hour, all the food is gone, it should stop, but she still feels like shit.

She’s drained, she’s empty, she’s clammy and cold and sweating and hot all at the same time.

Fatin finds her lying on her side, no energy to move and picks her up, trying to drag her back to their base. She stumbles over herself, weak in every way, not able to drink the LaCroix Fatin is attempting to shove down her throat, not able to say a quick comeback at her joke.

She gets jostled somewhere, she doesn’t know where or by who.

They all smell like Fatin’s soap and dirt by now.

With a mix up mussels and puke too, she guesses.

She hears Martha rapping the same song that she did back at the beginning with she shattered ankle and anger fuelling her.

Sometime later Leah shows up with a med, she tries to push it onto Marty but then all refuse, they don’t see, they don’t understand that she’s not fucking worth it, but Martha is. Leah pushes it down her throat and she can feel everyone crowding around her.

She hears and vaguely sees Shelby with a pill.

She tells her where she can stick it.

Shelby doesn’t just _get_ to call her a sinner then try to save her on the same day, she doesn’t get to do that.

Everyone shouts at each other then she’s getting pushed on her back but her.

Legs clamped on her thighs.

She’s making her take the pill.

No. Martha needs it, Martha not her.

“Swallow the fucking pill.” Is said, breath fanning her face, hand caressing her head, the other pushing against her mouth.

She swallows and chokes.

The warmth of Shelby is gone.

Martha faints and she wants to kill Shelby.

Wants to pull her hair and push her down and hurt her.

She wants to turn back time and run farther down the beach so no one finds her and Martha gets to live and not her.

Leah admits to dropping the bag and they run and run and run.

Martha lives.

All their shit almost gets lost.

Shelby works hard.

It’s pathetic. She knows that she’s just doing it to get back into their good graces.

But it’s what she deserves.

Since the mussels, since almost fucking dying, her anger doesn’t want to come back.

It doesn’t bubble up whenever Shelby speaks, it doesn’t show up at the worst times ruining everything.

It’s fucking cliché as fuck she knows, changing her life because she almost died but it feels right.

She still fucking hates Shelby, hates everything she stands for, hates what she’s doing to be liked again.

But there’s just something behind all the bullshit that she can’t look away from.

Plus she saved her life.

That has to count for something.

Right?

Shelby finds some bags, Leah goes apeshit.

Shelby takes out her teeth.

Fuck.

It starts to make some sense.

Not much, but it becomes slightly clearer.

Shelby leaves. No one follows her.

Dot flatlines.

Toni goes into the forest, looking for firewood.

She finds Shelby.

She doesn’t know why she talks to her.

But she wants to make her feel better for some fucking reason.

And it’s okay, her anger doesn’t swell, she doesn’t want to throw the wood she just collected at her until Shelby brings it up.

Of course she fucking brings it up.

She’s convinced she doesn’t hate Toni. Shelby is so fucking earnest as she says it but Toni knows better, know that hateful church shit has a way of burrowing into heads. The fact she doesn’t own her hate pisses her off. She can handle the ones who believe that she can rot in hell, shout at her, call her all sorts, but the homophobes who are all ‘love the sinner hate the sin’ and avert their eyes when gay shit happens.

Yeah she fucking hates those.

She watches as Shelby struggles.

To find words, to speak, to make head or tail of whatever the fuck is happening.

They collect firewood in silence until Shelby starts talking about her teeth.

She doesn’t care about the teeth, the teeth haven’t changed who she is in Toni’s mind.

Until she starts talking about being perfect, and tries to out-sad her.

It’s easier, without the anger forcing her into violence, she can talk without wanting to hurt her.

She’s talking to her, talking to Shelby, trying to tell her that she’s full of hate, that they’re on an _island_ in the middle of fucking nowhere. She can be who she wants to be, she do what she wants that her not taking advantage of that is her own fault.

She doesn’t know why she’s doing it.

Maybe she’s fed up with hating everything, all the energy she spends with her fury hurts.

Maybe she just wants Shelby to understand how fucking wrong she is.

It pisses her off, everyone else is growing into themselves, everyone else is taking advantage of the freedom but Shelby is stuck in her little fantasy, refusing to come down from her castle.

And then Shelby tugs on her neck and brings her into a kiss.

And oh.

_Oh._

It makes sense.

Everything suddenly makes fucking sense.

Just as she starts properly kissing back, starts touching the slightly blistered, sunburnt skin Shelby jerks away.

Her eyes are wide and scared.

Toni’s head is still slightly foggy.

No, don’t run, it’ll make it all harder.

She runs.

Her name gets get stuck in her throat.

“Shelby!”

And she goes.

**Author's Note:**

> Fuck is said thirty times in this lmao
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed :) xx
> 
> Comments do hit different but I do understand if you don't want to leave one :)
> 
> My tumblr is 'its3amandiamverytired' if you wanna hang out.


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